


Why Don't We Wait Here, and See What Happens?

by on_the_moon_at_last



Category: The Thing (1982)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 20:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16248974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_moon_at_last/pseuds/on_the_moon_at_last
Summary: Childs returns to the burning camp, but Mac is too tired to do anything and offers him a bottle. An extension of the final scene.





	Why Don't We Wait Here, and See What Happens?

MacReady is tired. His whole body aches. He does not know if it’s over, though he hopes it is. It’s when Childs comes back that he knows it in all likelihood isn’t.

_“Yeah, fuck you too!”_

Ironic. Super fucking ironic.

Childs got lost in the storm? Sure, he went out by himself and he came back. Plausible but unlikely. You can’t survive much out here. Even with all this fire and death around them. Whatever’s left of the camp is a nice light to be sure.

Part of him wants to laugh when he gives Childs the bottle. It would be welcome, a bit of levity after the hell. So he does. It’s simple and hollow, but a laugh all the same.

Childs looks at him with this dumbfounded expression that confirms his suspicions.

“What’s so funny, Mac? It’s alcohol.”

“It’s gasoline, you dumb fuck.” He can see the gears turning in Childs’ head. Sorry, the Thing’s head. It’s a nice imitation. It’s always been good at imitating. That’s what it does. It killed eleven people by doing just that. What was it? The chameleon strikes in the dark, that’s right.

“Oh.”

Geez, the fucker can’t even be surprised properly. Or lie well enough. It doesn’t want to.

It doesn’t want to, not anymore. Now there’s no real point in lying.

“You gonna kill me now, Mac?”

“Too fucking tired. I already blew your ugly ass up.”

“One incarnation. Why not finish the job? It’s all you bipeds do. Fuck, eat, kill. I haven’t been awake on this planet long and that is all I have seen. I have been asleep for eons, countless centuries I have waited for something to come along.”

“What the hell are you, anyway? Aside from an alien who ate my friends?” Of course, the dozen men weren’t really friends per se, it was the easiest word he could find. He’s too tired. He’s really fucking tired.

“I…” In all their years, the Collective has never been asked this. It does not know itself. Even the moniker of “Collective” is more of a self-given designation. Utterly meaningless if it does not know its origin or value.

“I do not know. I awoke, in a place much like this. Cold, observed. Not cold like the environment, but cold like you.” It hunts for the word. “’Detached’. Yes, I think that is right. Your language is fascinating, Mac. I have never encountered something so fascinating before, and all you do is fear. Fear is your species’ driving emotion. You root out and destroy that which you do not understand. I took Bennings to be able to communicate. At first. Then I remembered those who came before. The Norwegians. The woman, Kate. They all tried to destroy me, too. And I wanted a place in seclusion where I could complete the assimilation. I was going to talk to you, explain my being here. That I meant no harm. How-“  
“Hold the fuck up. You “meant no harm”? You killed eleven men!”

“- I only wished to communicate. And you burned me in the night. I could not speak, only scream, and you burned me in the night. I did kill your companions. Yes. But only because you provoked me. I am adaptation. I am growth. And your species seems incapable of growth, either by design or choice. You do not shift as I do. You remain stagnant. You are woefully maladapted to this cold place. This frozen… tundra. Antarctica. Is that right? I digress. Please understand, I simply wanted to explain, and then to leave.”

“Leave? In the ship? It yours?” Mac scoffed. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. You’re just gonna make me into you anyway.”

It shook its head. “No. You fought me, to the last. And even though I mourn the events which transpired, I am in awe of your ingenuity. I was hoping you and yours would aid me in the rejuvenation of the ship. And no, it was not my ship. Those who transported me… I freed myself and killed them. I was angry. I was detained. I did not understand why. But one survived. One, and it crashed. I found the pilot, tried to assimilate. Froze. Then the Norwegians, and Kate. I made myself like one she trusted, burned the misshaped abomination the other part of us became, and still she burned me. I thought she might aid, but I was a fool. I thought perhaps the female would be more accommodating than you bullheaded males. After all, as in all beings, the females are the more open and kinder. They produce young, and they are the benefactors of perpetuity. I was burned.”

Mac had wanted to roll his eyes. “So you came to consciousness in a laboratory? Did they ever tell you why you were there?”

“My… supervisors, if you will. They said I was to make peace through my abilities.”

Shit. This alien bastard’s a fuckin’ bioweapon. Of course. No wonder it doesn’t know mercy or anything, it wasn’t given any. And it seems so lost. If it wasn’t a murderous SOB, Mac would pity it. Part of him does. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I needed someone to know. I do not know wherefore I am, all I know it that I am. What I want is to exist. Nothing more. But I do not know how. What am I?”

“You’re asking the wrong guy. If you were in that ship for 100,000 years, you’re way older than me. If I'm right, whatever war you were probably made for is long since over, if wars out there are like wars here.”

“’War’?” It asks. “What is ‘war’?”

“Better off not knowing. What, we just gonna sit here and wait to freeze to death?”

“At least neither of us are alone.”

“Cold comfort.”

It laughs. It laughs, for the first time in its existence. The sensation is pleasant. “Is that what a joke is?”

Despite himself, MacReady laughs too. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what a joke is.”

“I simply wish to exist, to learn about this place.”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

“Yes. Regrettably. Apologies.”

“For what?”

“For what has happened in anger and misunderstanding.”

“Accepted.”

It gasps. It has never apologized before, and to hear understanding for the first time in eons is… it makes warmth happen inside. It smiles. “…. Thhhhank you.” It has never said those words before, does not truly grasp their meaning, and yet the words feel good.

“Perhaps it is better this way. That which is without purpose cannot fulfill itself. Yes, it is better this way.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“It is nice to know you do not fight any longer.”

“As I said, I’m too tired. I just wanna sleep. The fire will be out soon.”

“We will be out soon.”

“Funny way of putting it, but yeah. Never thought it would be this way, though.”

“Thank you,” it repeats, “for listening.”

“If we’re both gonna die, might as well give you some peace if you aren’t gonna kill me. You look tired too. Give you some small measure of satisfaction.”

“Very tired. We will be out soon.”

“We will be out soon.”

The fire dies in the next hours. MacReady goes to sleep, and soon his breathing stops, just before the fires fade. There is enough fire left. It goes to the fire, closes its eyes, and stands in the middle of the heat.

They waited there a while, and they saw what happened.


End file.
